I'll start off with admitting I don't know all the right terms and I'll probably sound pretty stupid...which is why I haven't just called them yet. I keep thinking I'll figure out the solution. You all are used to me sounding stupid.

I can't connect to the interwebz at home. I lost electric and didn't realize it because the loss wasn't whole house: it was just the power strip that goes to the two devices that hook into the wall/outlets for my wireless.

Since I didn't realize it, I started messing around with the netgear settings on the screen.

I can't make it connect now. A long long long time ago tw suggested I screen shot the way it looks when it's working: I did that but that was for the iffy old school crap the first guy who set up my wireless used. When time-warner came they updated everything and I didn't think to screen shot it all.

One thing I've noticed is that on the "about" tab my IP address is all zeroes. However, this is not correctable. On the tab that shows 'what I have' as far as my connection and MAC (what is that?) address...I don't have a Mac...everything is there.

I've read there is a reset button on the router (?) but it says I will lose all my settings and I don't know if that means any new settings I may have made (which I didn't because I certainly don't know enough to change anything) and I don't know if that will make it worse. The literature that suggested this, however, also thinks I can get online to go to wwwDOTrouterDOTnet or org or put in some numbers: but that doesn't work since I can't get online. For the security there is NOTHING in either the password or key spots, not even sure which one I'm supposed to use. I don't know what the password is or was or even which line it goes into. I snaked a picture of the screen from the web (don't know whose numbers these are, just a googled picture) and there used to be something under WEP under "passphrase" or "key" but I don't know what.

So the netgear window is there, but it keeps cycling through some channels looking for a connection and it never connects.

I have checked all the connections. The lights blink, perhaps like they're supposed to.

Yeah, I know this is why tech support gets frustrated with people like me: what the hell did I just say? I was hoping maybe a techie would have an idea.

Thanks.

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__________________Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

The Interwebz goes through the air, bodiless? It is all around us, always? All hail the Interwebz. May I be blessed by its wireless streaming and when I die, I hope I will enter into the body of the webz.

I dealt with Verizon when mine went bad.
First thing I told the guy was "I'm an idiot, now walk me through this"
an hour later - all was good.
Aside from that - I'll hang with spexx on the "I got nuttin" bench.

__________________"like strapping a pillow on a bull in a china shop" Bullitt

One of those tabs enables saving a modem's configuration to a file. If you have that file on some computer, then use it to update the modem configuration.

Otherwise, set security (encryption) to disabled. Then attempt a connection from a wireless computer. Disabled encryption makes getting it working easier. Once it is working, then restore the encryption with a new password. And then enter that same password in every computer that WiFi connects.

Save the reset button for a Nuke 'n Pave option - when all else fails.

Above assumes all computers cannot connect to the modem. Does the modem not connect to the ISP?

I've never had to save any configurations. The guy who set it up set it up, and it's worked ever since. Until now.

Eventually every configuration needs resetting or is somehow corrupted by confusion.

Get an Ethernet cable. Makes setting up a modem simpler. Generally, everyone should have at least one computer hardwired to the modem or router so that problems are solved easier. Later you can use that same computer via WiFi. But setup is easiest when hardwired.

I also locate a summary printout underneath each modem. Then I know what the passwords are and other unique configuration settings. No way can I remember a unique modem setup years later when a configuration is eventually corrupted. Also handy for the lineman who must restore an existing setup. He has information unique to that setup rather then just leave some incomplete default setting.